Larson grew up on the family farm near Erickson, Man.
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Write it again.
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Nothing that I wrote for his obituary seemed right to tell everyone my father had died.
It was the end of May 2005 when my father fell ill and it was June 6 that I was flown home from my job in Toronto and told the news: my father was terminally ill.
Thinking back now, I can’t remember much from that day except falling down crying and how the ride from Winnipeg to the hospital in Minnedosa seemed to take forever. We dealt with the news and my father bravely went through chemotherapy.
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It was early in the morning of Sept. 2, 2005 that my father drew his last breath in his hometown of Erickson, Man.
It was hard after the fact. Things started to change and fast.
We owned a small beef farm and could no longer keep the cattle. My grandfather, Wallace, was 83 at the time and could no longer look after a growing herd. He did, however, keep a dozen or so until his passing from a stroke the June following my father’s death.
He was a farmer until the end.
We had to rent out land and sell all our equipment, with my brother going into carpentry and my sister still in high school. I was finishing up my broadcasting degree.
There was no one to take over the family farm. Nothing I can write down could ever explain the feeling of saying goodbye to that way of life. I was heartbroken.
When my father was sick, he made me make one promise, and that was that someday I would visit Sweden. My great-grandfather was born in Sweden and my father was so proud of his Swedish roots.
In parades he would dress up as the Erickson Viking. He would wear blue and yellow clothing and pins, flew the Swedish flag at the end of our lane and even painted some fences blue.
Going to Sweden was always a dream of his and with his health fading so fast, he knew he would not make it. I promised him that I would go.
During the late 1800s and the early 1900s, no fewer than 1.5 million Swedes immigrated to North America. There wasn’t enough land in Sweden for all those who wanted to farm. Many could not afford to feed their children. Others left for religious reasons.
In North America they saw prosperity, possibility and a future for their children. Many moved to the United States and Canada. In Canada, the main centre for immigration was Winnipeg, after the railway was completed in 1885.
Manitoba was the first to have a Swedish language newspaper and church. Scandinavia was organized in 1885 and the colony resided on the Manitoba and North Western railway, near the town of Erickson. Many of the farmers in this area were interested in raising stock.
In those days many farmers could make a living off 10 acres of land, a big difference from today’s agricultural society.
After finishing my broadcasting degree, I set off travelling. I have visited 17 countries in the last five months, the last one being Sweden.
I arrived in Stockholm and after touring about, I did some research and went to Sundsvall. Sweden is one of the best countries of the world to do ancestor research and I went to the local museum. There are excellent records there because the priests kept them for tax reasons starting in the 1700s.
Not expecting to find anything, I typed in my great-grandfather’s name and within seconds I had pages of information at my fingertips.
I found out that my ancestors were farmers (of course) and had lived nearby Sundsvall in place called Sorfors. The next day I boarded a bus to head to a place where no Larsons from my family have gone since my great-grandfather left Sweden as an 11-year-old boy.
At Sorfors, I stepped off the bus and there I was, standing on the soil where my family roots were.
I found the church where they were baptized and walked around the cemetery. I then found a woman who had the keys and asked if I could peek inside.
She opened the door and led me into a beautiful church decorated in light yellow and blue and told me to take as long as I would like.
After she left I walked to the front pew, opened the wooden door and sat in the front pew and cried. I cried hard.
I cried because I had fulfilled my father’s dying wish and because I was back at the place of my ancestors. It was an uplifting and powerful moment.
I sat there for a long time and took it all in. That was the closest I have felt to my father since the day we spread some of his ashes on our family farm.
One of my father’s wishes for his ashes was for each of his children to have a little bit to spread wherever they wanted, somewhere special.
I spread my father’s ashes off a bridge into the lake in Sorfors, so in one way he did make it to Sweden.
I knew he was with me in spirit as I stood on that bridge, realizing that I had fulfilled a promise. My father always told me two things: you need both roots and wings. Roots so you know where you are from and wings to dream, challenge yourself and reach your goals.
I have been blessed with both.
The last day my father was at the farm before he passed away, he wrote on the chalkboard we had in the porch: “Remember Me.”
He wanted me to write about him and he wanted to make sure nobody forgot the Erickson Viking.
